International sustainable schools advocate in Sydney for Green Cities 2013

A more sustainable future relies on the education and engagement of students, says international green schools advocate Rachel Gutter, who will be in Sydney for Green Cities from 6-7 March.

Green Cities is co-hosted by the Green Building Council of Australia and Property Council of Australia, and will bring together world-leading sustainability specialists and innovators to share new ways of thinking.

Gutter, Director of the US Green Building Council’s influential Center for Green Schools, will be travelling from Washington DC to present to conference delegates on the need to depoliticise the sustainability debate and capitalise on the economic, social and environmental benefits.

According to Gutter, the secret to a more sustainable future is the education and engagement of the next generation of students in the sustainability conversation, and the commitment to forgo an overly politicised approach to green issues in favour of a more social, grassroots approach.

“In the US, we’ve found that high-performing learning environments prompt bipartisan support and engagement and are helping to depoliticise political conversations around climate, energy and environmental issues,” Gutter said.

“In fact, we’ve found that sustainability in schools is one of the only topics that everyone from Tea Party Republicans to the most liberal of Democrats can and do agree upon.”

Gutter argues that the creation of a healthy, happy and environmentally aware generation now will only serve to strengthen the impetus for a greener built environment, help to reduce the running costs of education facilities and reverse political opposition to sustainable change - a task that the Center for Green Schools is working hard to achieve in the US.

“High-performing schools result in high-performing students, and green schools go far beyond bricks and mortar. We see an opportunity to educate a new generation of leaders - sustainability natives - capable of driving global market transformation,” Gutter explained.

View the Green Cities program online at www.greencities.org.au.